Jan. 31, 2018, 9:54 a.m.

South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy said that he will not run for reelection and will "instead be returning to the judicial system." Gowdy had previously chaired a highly partisan panel investigating the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. (Jan. 31, 2018)

South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy said Wednesday that he will not run for reelection and will "instead be returning to the judicial system."

Gowdy is chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and previously chaired a highly partisan panel investigating the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

Gowdy is a former federal prosecutor. In a statement, he said that "whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system."

Jan. 31, 2018, 8:54 a.m.

Hillary Clinton says she should not have let a senior campaign advisor keep his job after a female staffer accused him of sexual harassment in 2007.

"The most important work of my life has been to support and empower women…," Clinton wrote on Facebook on Tuesday night. "So I very much understand the question I'm being asked as to why I let an employee on my 2008 campaign keep his job despite his inappropriate workplace behavior. The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldn't."

The most important work of my life has been to support and empower women. I’ve tried to do so here at home, around the...

Clinton said that senior campaign staff and legal counsel confirmed that the behavior by faith-based advisor Burns Strider had occurred after the woman came forward. Her campaign manager recommended that Strider be terminated, but Clinton said she instead demoted him, docked his pay, required counseling, separated him from the victim, and warned him that he'd be fired if he did it again.

Jan. 31, 2018, 8:45 a.m.

President Trump opened his State of the Union speech Tuesday night with a plea for unity forged on common ground. By the end of his address, it was clear how little he would give up for it.

Trump said he was "extending an open hand" to opposition Democrats gathered in the chamber. By the end of the speech, it may have felt like the back of one.

The president's tone and tempo were slowed and moderated by his use of a teleprompter, so he appeared more statesman-like than the raucous Trump seen in campaign events — and expressed in his Twitter feed — except when he adopted his rally habit of applauding for himself as the audience did.

Jan. 30, 2018, 9:22 p.m.

For over an hour Tuesday night, Presidential Trump vied with pugnacious Trump.

The White House had promised a conciliatory and uplifting State of the Union speech, which stood to reason. It's one thing to inveigh against the mess Trump said he inherited a year ago and another to laud the job he claims to have done cleaning it up.

Gone, then, was the wreckage, the ruin and the dystopian "American carnage" he deplored in the glowering speech at his inauguration. Instead, Trump offered a vision of hopefulness and light — for a time, anyway.

Jan. 30, 2018, 8:42 p.m.

President Trump’s address was the most tweeted-about State of the Union in Twitter history.

Data from the social media giant indicated there were 4.5 million tweets sent with #SOTU or #JointAddress during the speech, breaking last year’s record of 3 million.

The most tweeted topics during the address were Trump saying “we stand for the national anthem,” his proposal for immigration reform, and MS-13. The most tweeted-about people were Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi and Melania Trump.

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Jan. 30, 2018, 8:41 p.m.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took to Twitter on Tuesday night to tell President Trump her view. The message: So-called Dreamers — an estimated 800,000 people who were brought to the United States illegally as children — are Americans too.

The San Francisco Democrat was responding to a portion of Trump’s State of the Union address in which he cited the current immigration system as a safety threat to American families and said he’d be willing to work with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to achieve reform.

“My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans — to protect their safety, their families, their communities and their right to the American dream,” Trump said. “Because Americans are dreamers too.”